Re: [PATCHv2 5/8] gdb: don't resume vfork parent while child is still running

[Simon Marchi <simark@simark.ca>]

On 2023-07-04 11:22, Andrew Burgess via Gdb-patches wrote:
> Like the last few commit, this fixes yet another vfork related issue.
> Like the commit titled:
> 
>   gdb: don't restart vfork parent while waiting for child to finish
> 
> which addressed a case in linux-nat where we would try to resume a
> vfork parent, this commit addresses a very similar case, but this time
> occurring in infrun.c.  Just like with that previous commit, this bug
> results in the assert:
> 
>   x86-linux-dregs.c:146: internal-error: x86_linux_update_debug_registers: Assertion `lwp_is_stopped (lwp)' failed.
> 
> In this case the issue occurs when target-non-stop is on, but non-stop
> is off, and again, schedule-multiple is on.  As with the previous
> commit, GDB is in follow-fork-mode child.  If you have not done so, it
> is worth reading the earlier commit as many of the problems leading to
> the failure are the same, they just appear in a different part of GDB.
> 
> Here are the steps leading to the assertion failure:
> 
>   1. The user performs a 'next' over a vfork, GDB stop in the vfork
>   child,
> 
>   2. As we are planning to follow the child GDB sets the vfork_parent
>   and vfork_child member variables in the two inferiors, the
>   thread_waiting_for_vfork_done member is left as nullptr, that member
>   is only used when GDB is planning to follow the parent inferior,
> 
>   3. The user does 'continue', our expectation is that the vfork child
>   should resume, and once that process has exited or execd, GDB should
>   detach from the vfork parent.  As a result of the 'continue' GDB
>   eventually enters the proceed function,
> 
>   4. In proceed we selected a ptid_t to resume, because
>   schedule-multiple is on we select minus_one_ptid (see
>   user_visible_resume_ptid),
> 
>   5. As GDB is running in all-stop on top of non-stop mode, in the
>   proceed function we iterate over all threads that match the resume
>   ptid, which turns out to be all threads, and call
>   proceed_resume_thread_checked.  One of the threads we iterate over
>   is the vfork parent thread,
> 
>   6. As the thread passed to proceed_resume_thread_checked doesn't
>   match any of the early return conditions, GDB will set the thread
>   resumed,
> 
>   7. As we are resuming one thread at a time, this thread is seen by
>   the lower layers (e.g. linux-nat) as the "event thread", which means
>   we don't apply any of the checks, e.g. is this thread a
>   vfork parent, instead we assume that GDB core knows what it's doing,
>   and linux-nat will resume the thread, we have now incorrectly set
>   running the vfork parent thread when this thread should be waiting
>   for the vfork child to complete,
> 
>   8. Back in the proceed function GDB continues to iterate over all
>   threads, and now (correctly) resumes the vfork child thread,
> 
>   8. As the vfork child is still alive the kernel holds the vfork
>   parent stopped,
> 
>   9. Eventually the child performs its exec and GDB is sent and EXECD
>   event.  However, because the parent is resumed, as soon as the child
>   performs its exec the vfork parent also sends a VFORK_DONE event to
>   GDB,
> 
>   10. Depending on timing both of these events might seem to arrive in
>   GDB at the same time.  Normally GDB expects to see the EXECD or
>   EXITED/SIGNALED event from the vfork child before getting the
>   VFORK_DONE in the parent.  We know this because it is as a result of
>   the EXECD/EXITED/SIGNALED that GDB detaches from the parent (see
>   handle_vfork_child_exec_or_exit for details).  Further the comment
>   in target/waitstatus.h on TARGET_WAITKIND_VFORK_DONE indicates that
>   when we remain attached to the child (not the parent) we should not
>   expect to see a VFORK_DONE,
> 
>   11. If both events arrive at the same time then GDB will randomly
>   choose one event to handle first, in some cases this will be the
>   VFORK_DONE.  As described above, upon seeing a VFORK_DONE GDB
>   expects that (a) the vfork child has finished, however, in this case
>   this is not completely true, the child has finished, but GDB has not
>   processed the event associated with the completion yet, and (b) upon
>   seeing a VFORK_DONE GDB assumes we are remaining attached to the
>   parent, and so resumes the parent process,
> 
>   12. GDB now handles the EXECD event.  In our case we are detaching
>   from the parent, so GDB calls target_detach (see
>   handle_vfork_child_exec_or_exit),
> 
>   13. While this has been going on the vfork parent is executing, and
>   might even exit,
> 
>   14. In linux_nat_target::detach the first thing we do is stop all
>   threads in the process we're detaching from, the result of the stop
>   request will be cached on the lwp_info object,
> 
>   15. In our case the vfork parent has exited though, so when GDB
>   waits for the thread, instead of a stop due to signal, we instead
>   get a thread exited status,
> 
>   16. Later in the detach process we try to resume the threads just
>   prior to making the ptrace call to actually detach (see
>   detach_one_lwp), as part of the process to resume a thread we try to
>   touch some registers within the thread, and before doing this GDB
>   asserts that the thread is stopped,
> 
>   17. An exited thread is not classified as stopped, and so the assert
>   triggers!
> 
> Just like with the earlier commit, the fix is to spot the vfork parent
> status of the thread, and not resume such threads.  Where the earlier
> commit fixed this in linux-nat, in this case I think the fix should
> live in infrun.c, in proceed_resume_thread_checked.  This function
> already has a similar check to not resume the vfork parent in the case
> where we are planning to follow the vfork parent, I propose adding a
> similar case that checks for the vfork parent when we plan to follow
> the vfork child.
> 
> This new check will mean that at step #6 above GDB doesn't try to
> resume the vfork parent thread, which prevents the VFORK_DONE from
> ever arriving.  Once GDB sees the EXECD/EXITED/SIGNALLED event from
> the vfork child GDB will detach from the parent.
> 
> There's no test included in this commit.  In a subsequent commit I
> will expand gdb.base/foll-vfork.exp which is when this bug would be
> exposed.
> 
> If you do want to reproduce this failure then you will for certainly
> need to run the gdb.base/foll-vfork.exp test in a loop as the failures
> are all very timing sensitive.  I've found that running multiple
> copies in parallel makes the failure more likely to appear, I usually
> run ~6 copies in parallel and expect to see a failure after within
> 10mins.

Hi Andrew,

Since this commit, I see this on native-gdbserver and
native-extended-gdbserver:

FAIL: gdb.base/vfork-follow-parent.exp: resolution_method=schedule-multiple: continue to end of inferior 2 (timeout)
FAIL: gdb.base/vfork-follow-parent.exp: resolution_method=schedule-multiple: inferior 1 (timeout)
FAIL: gdb.base/vfork-follow-parent.exp: resolution_method=schedule-multiple: print unblock_parent = 1 (timeout)
FAIL: gdb.base/vfork-follow-parent.exp: resolution_method=schedule-multiple: continue to break_parent (timeout)

I haven't had the time to read this vfork series, but I look forward to,
since I also did some vfork fixes not too long ago.

Simon